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Andrew Bacevich

America’s strategic stupidity

Rather, I fault Washington for its unwillingness to acknowledge its persistent cluelessness in the face of all that has occurred since a prior US strategy purportedly ‘won’ the Cold War. What I am asking from strategists is this: fess up to your failures. Acknowledge the limits of your predictive abilities. Quit simplifying. Shut up.

In the present age, strategy as such has become a dangerous chimera. Strategy sustains the illusion that the United States can and should determine the course of world events, thereby keeping America in the global driver’s seat. Yet whatever is coming down the pike, you can count on one thing: it’s going to be something other than what General Dempsey anticipates as a result of his strategic seminars. Nor should we expect Secretary of State John Kerry (or Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, if he wins confirmation) to do any better. When it comes to looking round the bend, the civilians are no more adept than the soldiers. As always, the United States — like every other nation — will be left to cope as best it can.

The one thing that the US actually could do to secure its future is the one thing that it refuses to do: demonstrate a capacity to manage its own affairs; live within its means; set its own house in order. In Washington, talk about global strategy provides an excuse to avoid doing what needs to be done.

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There’s always some dimwit Congressman proposing to do away with the 22nd Amendment so their party’s president can run for a third time. They always seem to overestimate the popular support of their leader.

Obama had it tough enough winning re-election once. The Constitution is not going to get amended just so he can run again.

Problems ensued. Not least among them was the fact that US forces turned out to be better at initiating hostilities than concluding them. Simply put, the troops proved unable to win, a shortcoming painfully evident in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Not really. The troops didn’t “prove unable to win” at all. They won, and much faster than the journalists watching were willing to admit, since they really want to believe that the US is too weak to win.

What did “turn out” was that winning is easy, compared to stabilizing the nation and government afterwards. In a traditional conquest, this would not be considered part of the war, but part of the “pacification” of the conquered territory afterwards.

Since the U.S. is not interested in conquest — and really, isn’t it time we get a little credit for that? — this “pacification of the conquered” was replaced by the U.S. becoming an occupying force while helping to create a new government.

It’s no minor distinction. The U. S. military wins wars quickly and decisively. What the U. S. military does not do well is occupation. We don’t like it. We have no interest in subjugating the nation or turning them into a colony. We just want them to pick themselves up, create their own government, start dealing with their own insurgents and rebels, and let us go home.

We’d frankly be happy to just go straight home and skip the occupation entirely. Unfortunately, we know that if we leave too soon afterwards, we’ll just have to come back.